All the passages below
are taken from Elisabeth Elliot’s book “Keep A Quiet Heart,” published in
1995 and reprinted in 2008.

The world cannot
fathom strength proceeding from weakness, gain proceeding from loss, or power
from meekness. Christians apprehend these truths very slowly, if at all, for we
are strongly influenced by secular thinking. Let's stop and concentrate on what
Jesus meant when He said that the meek would inherit the earth. Do we
understand what meekness truly is? Think first about what it isn't.

It is not a naturally
phlegmatic temperament.
I knew a woman who was so phlegmatic that nothing seemed to make much difference
to her at all. While drying dishes for her one day in her kitchen I asked where
I should put a serving platter.

"Oh, I don't know.
Wherever you think would be a good place," was her answer. I wondered how she
managed to find things if there wasn't a place for everything (and everything in
its place).

Meekness is not
indecision or laziness or feminine fragility or loose sentimentalism or
indifference or affable neutrality.

Meekness is most
emphatically not weakness.
Do you remember who was the meekest man in the Old Testament? Moses! (See
Numbers 12:3). My mental image of him is not of a feeble man. It is shaped by
Michelangelo's sculpture and painting and by the biblical descriptions. Think of
him murdering the Egyptian, smashing the tables of the commandments, grinding
the golden calf to a powder, scattering it on the water and making the
Israelites drink it. Nary a hint of weakness there, nor in David who wrote, "The
meek will he guide in judgment" (Psalm 25:9, KJV), nor in Isaiah, who wrote,
"The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord" (Isaiah 29:19, KJV).

The Lord Jesus was the
Lamb of God, and when we think of lambs we think of meekness (and perhaps
weakness), but He was also the Lion of Judah, and He said, "I am meek and lowly
in heart" (Matthew 11:29, KJV). He told us that we can find rest for our souls
if we will come to Him, take His yoke, and learn. What we must learn is
meekness. It doesn't come naturally to any of us.

Meekness is
teachability.
"The meek will he teach his way" (Psalm 25:9, KJV). It is the readiness to be
shown, which includes the readiness to lay down my fixed notions, my objections
and "what ifs" or "but what abouts," my certainties about the rightness of what
I have always done or thought or said. It is the child's glad "Show me! Is this
the way? Please help me." We won't make it into the kingdom without that
childlikeness, that simple willingness to be taught and corrected and helped.
"Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls"
(James 1:21, KJV). Meekness is an explicitly spiritual quality, a fruit
of the Spirit, learned, not inherited. It shows in the kind of
attention we pay to one another, the tone of voice we use, the facial
expression.

One weekend I spoke in
Atlanta on this subject, and the following weekend I was to speak on it again in
Philadelphia. As very often happens, I was sorely tested on that very point in
the few days in between. That sore test was my chance to be taught and changed
and helped. At the same time I was strongly tempted to indulge in the very
opposite of meekness: sulking. Someone had hurt me. He/she was the one who
needed to be changed! I felt I was misunderstood, unfairly treated, and unduly
berated. Although I managed to keep my mouth shut, both the Lord and I knew that
my thoughts did not spring from a depth of loving-kindness and holy charity. I
wanted to vindicate myself to the offender. That was a revelation of how little
I knew of meekness.

The Spirit of God
reminded me that it was He who had provided this very thing to bring that lesson
of meekness which I could learn nowhere else. He was literally putting me on the
spot: would, I choose, here and now, to learn of Him, learn His meekness?He was despised, rejected, reviled, pierced, crushed, oppressed, afflicted,
yet He did not open His mouth. What was this little incident of mine by
comparison with my Lord's suffering? He brought to mind Jesus' willingness not
only to eat with Judas, who would soon betray Him, but also to kneel before him
and wash his dirty feet. He showed me the look the Lord gave Peter when he had
three times denied Him---a look of unutterable love and forgiveness, a look of
meekness which overpowered Peter's cowardice and selfishness, and brought him to
repentance. I thought of His meekness as He hung pinioned on the cross, praying
even in His agony for His Father's forgiveness for His killers. There was no
venom or bitterness there, only the final proof of a sublime and invincible
love.

But how shall I, not
born with the smallest shred of that quality, I who love victory by argument and
put-down, ever learn that holy meekness? The prophet Zephaniah tells us to
seek it (Zephaniah 2:3). We must walk (live) in the Spirit, not gratifying
the desires of the sinful nature (for example, my desire to answer back, to
offer excuses and accusations, my desire to show up the other's fault instead of
to be shown my own). We must "clothe" ourselves (Colossians 3:12) with
meekness---put it on, like a garment. This entails an explicit choice: I
will be meek. I will not sulk, will not retaliate, will not carry a chip.

A steadfast look at
Jesus instead of at the injury makes a very great difference. Seeking to see
things in His light changes the aspect altogether.

In Pilgrim's Progress,
Prudence asks Christian in the House Beautiful, "Can you remember by what means
you find your annoyances at times, as if they were vanquished?"

"Yes," says Christian,
"when I think what I saw at the Cross, that will do it."

The message of the
cross is foolishness to the world and to all whose thinking is still worldly.
But "the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God
is stronger than man's strength" (1 Corinthians 1:25, NIV). The meekness of
Jesus was a force more irresistible than any force on earth. "By the meekness
and gentleness of Christ," wrote the great apostle, "I appeal to you.... Though
we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight
with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power
to demolish strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:1, 3-4, NIV). The weapon of meekness
counters all enmity, says author Dietrich Von Hildebrand, with the offer of an
unshielded heart.

Isn't this the simple
explanation for our being so heavy-laden, so tired, so overburdened and confused
and bitter? We drag around such prodigious loads of resentment and
self-assertion. Shall we not rather accept at once the loving invitation: "Come
to Me. Take My yoke. Learn of Me---I am gentle, meek, humble, lowly. I will give
you rest"
(Matthew 11:28-29 paraphrased). [106-109]